Lunch at the Fat Duck - Part 3

Next up on our lunch:

RED CABBAGE GAZPACHO

• Pommery Grain Mustard Ice Cream

Now, this one was particularly interesting as I have tried making it myself, a feat that I chronicled here:

http://morten-moen.blogspot.no/2013/11/food-from-fat-duck-red-cabbage-gazpacho.html

This is a cold soup made from red cabbage juice with vinegar thickened with red wine mayonnaise and served with a mustard ice cream. There is also cucumber brunoise (cucumber cut into very small dice). Before being sliced, the cucumber has been compressed by vacuum.

Would the original be better than mine? I would guess that none of you held your breath for the answer for that one, did you? My daughter, Ida, was not very shy about it, but stated clearly that it was better. And I would agree with her. It was milder, mine had more acidity, possibly due to me using the wrong vinegar. 

And now for one of the highlights

JELLY OF QUAIL, CRAYFISH CREAM

• Chicken Liver Parfait, Oak Moss and Truffle Toast

This stared with our waiter placing a box with moss on our table. On it were four small boxes with a thin film inside. We were told to take the films out, place them on our tongues and let them melt. This produced a forest in my mouth. Not as in stuff growing in there, but the flavour of forest and moss.

Water was poured over the moss, and smoke came flowing out of it releasing the sent of moss and forest. This, of course, is something the Fast Duck is known for. There is dry ice with scented oils under the moss, and this produces smoke (or vapour) when water is poured over it. The whole point of this is that Heston Blumenthal wants all the senses to be part of the meal, and it is a well known fact that smell is a big part of flavour. So filling the air with the scent of moss will add to the flavour of the dish.

Then food was put before us. One fancy looking bowl and one piece of wood with a piece of toast on it. Truffle toast. In the bowl was a chicken liver pate, langoustine cream, quail jelly and (I think) pea mousse. And some sort of tuile, fig according to the book. As I have mentioned, I have the Fat Duck Cookbook, and this dish is in the book. It is interesting to see that the dishes at the restaurant evolve. At the time of writing the book, this dish contained a foie gras parfait in stead of the chicken liver pate.

This tasted really heavenly. But the best component of the dish, perhaps one of the best components of the meal, was the truffle toast. Again according to the book (provided they have not changed the recipe), this is toasted bread cooked in foie gras fat, spread with truffle and oak butter and topped with slices of fresh Perigord truffle and radishes. Absolutely fantastic!

After the meal, we agreed that this was one of the highlights.